After taking gold in the Alberta Provincial Slopestyle competition on March 25, Fernie’s Caoimhe Heavey took fourth in the Canadian Junior Freestyle Skiing Championships in Whistler.

Although she took fourth overall in the half pipe competition, the 12-year-old scored third overall in her U14 age group, taking home a bronze national medal in her first ever national competition.

“Her coaches were delighted, because it’s a huge thing to win a national title,” said her father, James.

Heavey qualified for the Junior Nationals after taking gold in the Lake Louise Provincials in the new year.

In discussing the Alberta Slopestyle Gold in Calgary, Heavey said she had a bad training day, but was ecstatic to place first out of seven other girls in her category. Heavey took the victory with a score of 66.6, beating silver medalist, Melisa Urton of Edmonton Freestyle who scored 64.4.

In the Junior Nationals that took place on April 9, athletes competed in three events, and the overall score was determined by combining those individual scores.

In the half pipe competition, Heavey took fourth overall, and third in her category. This was the first time Heavey had competed in half pipe.

“It was super fun, and a lot easier than I thought it would be,” she said.

In big air, she took fourth in her category. In the slopestyle competition, she secured seventh in her category.

Out of the U18, U16 and U14 age groups, Heavey took eighth overall out of 11 women, and out of the U14 age group alone, she took fourth out of six.

“I was really happy with them (the results), because it was my first national competition.” said Heavey, who admits the atmosphere was more stressful than she was used to.

“My coach was super happy about it,” said Heavey. “He was just as excited about it as I was.”

Heavey started out not liking moguls, but through encouragement by her trainers, has becoming competent in this area of competition.

“This tournament encourages kids to do a bit of everything, until they’re 16 or 17,” said James.

Looking through the summer to next season, Heavey has a list of things she wants to accomplish in slopestyle specifically. Some of these tricks include 540’s, 720’s, switch 540’s and potentially misty 540’s. She is also still working on her front flip.